Environment

Traditional medicine provides health care for more than half the world’s population, but no one has really looked at how the environment affects traditional medicine. Studying 12 ethnic groups from Nepal biologists found that plant availability in the local environment has a stronger influence on the make-up of a culture’s medicinal floras. This means that the environment plays a huge role in shaping traditional knowledge. This is very important, especially when you think of the risks that these cultures are already facing.

Healthy food products that are produced in an environmentally-friendly manner will boost the health of the Swiss population while protecting natural resources. The National Research Programme “Healthy Nutrition and Sustainable Food Production” (NRP 69) aims to identify new approaches to food production.

If you would like to live to a healthy, ripe old age, take a cue from some of the most long-lived (and robust) people on the planet by consuming a diet rich in fulvic acid. Formed over thousands of years from microorganisms’ decomposed organic matter, fulvic acid is at once nourishing and detoxifying. Offering outstanding protection against cognitive impairment, heavy metals and numerous health complaints – including diabetes, inflammation and chronic fatigue – fulvic acid has kept the Himalayan communities of India, Nepal and Pakistan sharp and resilient for centuries.

Ah, the Garden Giant. He’s a jolly fellow who roams around your garden at night tossing mulch as he merrily skips along, helping your veggies grow lush and tall. Not quite. The Garden Giant is actually a species of mushroom, scientifically known as Stropharia rugosoannulata, that may hold a key to filtering harmful pollutants from stormwater runoff.

If you’re eating better and exercising regularly, but still aren’t seeing improvements in your health, there might be a reason: pollution. According to a new research report published in the September issue of The FASEB Journal, what you are eating and doing may not be the problem, but what’s in what you are eating could be the culprit.

Vitamin C is one of the most important antioxidants on Earth, and its ability to aid tissue growth and repair is well-known. However, British researchers at the Imperial College of London have found another good reason to eat more oranges and lemons – vitamin C can also guard us against the negative effects of air pollutants such as car exhaust and power plants.

In a study involving rats fed cadmium-polluted drinking water (40 mg CdCl2/L), cadmium was found to increase oxidative stress (induce the release of TNF-alpha and IL-6), and oral administration of curcumin (50 mg/kg body weight) was found to significantly protect against these adverse effects.

Deep in a laboratory freezer, 100,000 vials of blood have been frozen for the better part of five decades. For scientist Barbara Cohn, it’s a treasure trove. Collected from more than 15,000 San Francisco Bay Area women after they gave birth in the 1960s, each vial of blood holds a woman’s lifetime of secrets.

Forget DEET, because it appears some mosquitoes do. A new study has indicated that some mosquitoes quickly turn up their nose at the toxic insecticide, so it may be time to consider how to fight mosquitoes naturally.